


Like You've Seen a Ghost

by yorkisms



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst With A Bittersweet Ending, Copious bending of the rules of the universe, F/F, Pre-Relationship, Siren!Gaige, it gets cut short by the uh. death.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25857259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yorkisms/pseuds/yorkisms
Summary: Gaige is, perhaps, far too attached to AI and sirens masquerading as AI.So, instead of giving her powers to Tannis, Angel makes a slightly different choice.
Relationships: Angel/Gaige (Borderlands)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	Like You've Seen a Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me after I completed a playthrough of BL2 finally (thank you nintendo switch port) and played it with a fun little emphasis on Gaigel. I've had writer's block for the entirety of US lockdown so this is the first thing I've written in a while and in a new fandom no less, which is kind of ambitious. Enjoy. 
> 
> Nonverbal Zer0 coming from the fact that I suck at haiku and wanted to not think too hard about it, but also wanted to include my nonbinary icon. 
> 
> [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfNcvC-3UOs) was my mood music.

Gaige wakes up in the snow feeling like she should probably be dead. There's someone talking nearby her, a tinny robotic voice that brings her to attention faster than a human. She's always had a soft spot for robots, and she finds them easier to talk to than people. That's why she has Deathtrap, after all. That's why she left Eden-5. That's why- 

Gaige hears someone shuffling, then a response. 

"Crap," a deep voice curses. "I don't remember any sign languages."

Funny. Gaige was putting some sign language interpretation modules into Deathtrap before she presented him at the science fair. 

She sits up slowly, groaning. It's cold- really cold, but she's still conscious somehow. 

There's more rustling- presumably the person who signs, but since her vision is still somewhat blurry she can't translate it. Whatever they said, someone puts a hand on her shoulder. 

"Hey, take it easy, kid." 

Not the same voice as before, but similar. Gaige blinks the blurriness out of her eyes. 

Ah- one of the vault hunters from the train. The train she had gotten on to become a Vault Hunter. She checks her head with her hands. 

"Probably bruised," the vault hunter concedes. "I think we all are." 

"We?" 

"Six of us survived the blast. You included, I guess. You're the youngest one we got, though. What's your name, kid?" 

"Gaige." 

"Gaige. Cool. You too young to hold a gun?" 

Gaige rolls her eyes, then winces slightly at the headache that causes. "Yeah, I'm fifteen, not five. Help me up." 

The vault hunter grins. "Okay, cool. I'm Axton." 

Gaige squints against the light on the snow to see four other vault hunters watching them as Axton helps her up. 

"Meet Salvador, Zer0, Krieg, and Maya the Siren." 

Zer0 waves, their mask blinking with a smile emoji. Gaige perks up immediately. 

"That's so cool, is that linked to your mind- are you an android? Do you input default emoticon options that you flip between?" 

"They don't speak," Maya says, and Gaige keeps going. 

"You sign, right? Can I see it? I studied fifteen variants of intergalactic sign language, I might be able to read it-" 

"When did you have time to do that?" 

"School," Gaige replies cheerfully, and it is a half truth so she just leaves it at that. 

Zer0 seems to flick their gaze over everyone present before signing to Gaige, which it takes her a second to parse, but she's already deciphering it from her months of coding. 

"Hello, Gaige. I prefer not to speak unless it is strictly necessary. There are some complications involved. I was hoping it would not be necessary." 

Gaige blinks. "Oh, okay! So Zer0- is they okay?" 

Zer0 nods. 

"They're selectively mute. They choose not to talk. They can hear us and understand us. Did I get everything important?" They nod again, and Gaige grins. "Okay, it looks like a pretty universal dialect. I'm sure I can translate most of it." 

It's a really strange start to the whole tale, but it's what Gaige remembers happening first- apart from Angel. 

Angel is the thing that happens second.

As Gaige takes a few steps forward, she hears the most beautiful voice, and sees the most beautiful face through her ECHO. And while her new compatriots keep walking forward she stands there totally immobilized as the person speaks. 

"I don't have a lot of time to explain, but you're very important to Pandora's future, and taking down Hyperion." 

"Who are you?" Gaige whispers, awestruck. The hologram seems to smile to itself. 

"You can call me Angel, please. I'm going to get you to Sanctuary." 

They stop at the Claptrap's little hole in the wall for the evening to patch their wounds, and that's when Gaige gets to sneak off on her own to fiddle with her ECHO. 

"Angel? Do you hear me when I ask for you?" 

"Sometimes," Angel admits, her image fizzing into existence. Gaige is just as star struck as she was the moment she laid eyes on Angel. 

"I...wow. Who are you? Where do you come from?" She almost blurts out 'do you like redheads,' but she stops herself. "Sorry, I'm- I'm sorry." 

Gaige had never been one for dating in her school complex on Eden-5. But now, she feels drawn to Angel, and Angel seems to be indulging her. 

"We can chat later, Gaige," Angel says, voice gentle but firm. "You'll need to wake the others in a few hours. The road to Sanctuary and to save Pandora will be hard, but you'll need each other's help. And you'll need to move quickly, before Jack discovers you here." 

"Okay, Angel," Gaige says breathlessly. "I'll get to Sanctuary. But then I'm going to spend a night talking to you." 

Angel laughs, and her laugh is high, clear, and beautiful. 

"I look forward to it. Please get some rest, I'll make sure you all wake on time to press forward to Liar's Berg. Goodnight, Gaige." 

Gaige tried to keep her promise to Angel, but instead, she couldn't sleep a wink. When their ECHOs buzzed with an alert from Angel urging them to move forward, Gaige had already taken a rifle and was first out the door. 

The trek to Sanctuary was hard, and the fights were harder. Gaige would remember them fondly, if she wasn't half determined to hear from Angel again. She remembers the six of them crushing Captain Flynt, of course- it wasn't a rough battle with Deathtrap and five skilled mercenaries on her side. 

Gaige proved herself, too. She wasn't a sharpshooter like Zer0- the quiet, unknown being had proven to be skilled with their aim- but she could put enough hurt on anything to make it fall down. She remembers splitting the loot with the others and discussing Axton's turret with him as they sat against the rail of the ship headed towards Sanctuary. Axton was nice to her- perhaps a little overprotective at first, but he backed off once he saw her summon Deathtrap. He was the first one she told about the science fair and Marcie. In return, he told her about his ex-wife, and how he missed her. 

Zer0 didn't talk at all about themself, but signed to Gaige and Deathtrap with consistency. Krieg barely talked coherently at all, but that mysterious siren lady- Maya- seemed to understand every word. Were they friends? Gaige wasn't sure. They were still wary of each other, having just met only a day or two before, but Gaige trusted them a lot more than she probably should. 

Gaige is snoozing on Deathtrap's side when the boat stops, and she's jostled awake. Angel's image is in front of her eyes as she opens them. 

"I hope you slept well, Gaige," Angel says, which makes her confident that Angel is only speaking to her. "You're almost to Sanctuary now. Once you get there, you should take a day to rest." 

"Don't we have to save Pandora?" Gaige asks. Angel nods. 

"But you can't do that without a solid meal and a good night's rest. I hope you get that soon, Gaige. I, um...looked up your history. I think you deserve it." 

Before Gaige can respond to that, Angel winks out of existence, and Gaige feels a hot flush creeping into her cheeks. Deathtrap returns to her arm, and she falls on her butt to the ground, causing Axton, Zer0, and Maya to look over at her. 

"Nothing," Gaige says, face furiously red. "We're docked?"

Axton nods shortly. "We're going to need a car to get to Sanctuary." 

* * *

Gaige has the gunner seat on Axton's car into Sanctuary. Instead of shooting most of what they pass by (primarily bullymongs, which Gaige doesn't care about because Axton just runs them over instead) she puts her chin on her hand, leans on the gun, and thinks about Angel. 

"Hey, Angel?" 

Angel fades into view in front of her. "Yes, Gaige?" 

Gaige figures it'll be a while before she gets to actually ask Angel any of the important stuff that Angel ducked answering last night, so instead, she asks something else. 

"Do you like robots?" 

Angel actually looks overjoyed at that question. "Why…yes, actually, I do." 

Gaige lights up. She's always been better at circuit boards than people, and talking about that makes her happiest. "Cool! What do you know about automated conflict deterrents? Do you want to see my schematics for Deathtrap? Do you think you could give me pointers?" 

Angel looks startled by that, but smiles. "I would have to see those schematics first, Gaige." 

Gaige grins, wind whipping her hair. "I have so much to tell you about them! Deathtrap can understand over 50 languages and passably interpret emotion in all of them, as well as 15 variants of interstellar sign. Cool, right? He can't talk, but he loves me anyway. His locomotion system started as legs, like a Hyperion bot, but I realized that that was ultimately unsustainable because…" 

Angel looks contented- no, happy- to listen to Gaige's chatter about Deathtrap, and that only makes Gaige like her more. 

Come with me where the magic is, there's more light than we could share   
We could join the sun and moon if you want to 

Even though things are packed even as they get to Sanctuary, chatting with Angel becomes a routine for Gaige. When she's getting driven somewhere, she talks shop with Angel. At night, when they make camp, she tells Angel stories about Eden-5 and her childhood. She knows that Angel is an AI by now, at least, that was what Lilith had insinuated (and Lilith was so cool, Gaige thinks, siren powers are the best.) Knowing that Angel is an AI inspires her to tell Angel everything she can about the world. She describes feelings and sensations to Angel, tells Angel about things like dogs, how she thinks skags are fucking adorable, and what it feels like to hold a gun. 

She tells Angel about love. 

Or, in a roundabout way, she tells Angel about love. She says that no one ever really liked her on Eden-5, and that she knows what love looks like, but not what it feels like. 

She's lying, and that's the one time she lies to Angel. She knows what it feels like. She does now. 

Which is why Gaige feels her blood turn to ice when it happens. 

"Activating phase shift." 

"Angel!" Gaige screams, feeling devastated, and her fellow vault hunters look at her with confusion. Before she can explain, the mortars begin to fall, and Axton, their de facto source of direction, begins dishing out orders. 

"Get back to the city! Lend whatever help you can!" 

Wings sprout from Maya's back and she flies towards the entrance to Sanctuary, and Gaige isn't even focused enough to think that that looks so fucking cool. 

"Gaige!" Salvador calls, and she has no choice but to pull out her rifle and chase after the others. 

They find themselves in a bandit technical, following Angel's new directions to try and get back to Sanctuary. They make camp in the dust for the night, sleeping in the bed of the truck in close quarters. They rock paper scissors for who gets the front seat and the answers are Maya and Krieg. Gaige makes a gagging noise thinking about that because Krieg definitely has a crush on Maya. But that's not the problem tonight. The problem is that they're arguing.

About Angel.

Gaige draws her knees up to her chest and listens to Axton, Salvador, and Maya argue while Zer0 sits watching and Krieg busies himself with drawing on the ground. 

"She betrayed us," Maya is saying. "Why would we have any reason to trust-" 

"-how else are we going to get back to Sanctuary?" Axton replies. "If you have a better idea, Maya-" 

"-we could always kill Jack," Salvador points out, and Maya gives him a look. 

"On our own? No Crimson Raiders? No nothing? Just six idiots who were foolish enough to trust a voice in our ECHOs-" 

"What choice do we have?" 

Zer0 interjects in sign, "Maya has a point." 

Axton, who has been picking up on Zer0's signs by now, shoots Zer0 an annoyed look. "Then give me a better plan!" 

"Figure it out alone?" Zer0 signs. Axton clearly looks annoyed by that. 

"We can't trust her, I know that-" 

Gaige can't control herself bursting into frustrated tears, causing the others to look at her- except Krieg, who is still drawing something on the ground. 

"Have you ever considered that she doesn't want to work for Jack?" 

The pronouncement takes the others by surprise. Gaige can't stop angry crying now, and part of her is embarrassed that she's living up to her age. Fifteen. Mostly done with all that puberty stuff, but not with the trials of being a teenager. She doesn't want them to see her as a child, but right now, she may as well be. She sniffs, before continuing. 

"I mean- why, why, why would any of this- why would she want to do this!" Gaige wails, at war between her caution of the petit bourgeoisie and her care for Angel. "She's just an AI! She doesn't have a choice when Jack is right there pulling the strings! Just because he said she's working for him that doesn't mean she wants to! Isn't it more likely that he's the one trying to manipulate us instead of her?" 

"Gaige," Maya says softly, and Gaige wipes her eyes furiously. "It's been a hard few days, and I'm sorry. You're allowed to have a say in an argument like this too, and I'm sorry if we gave you the impression we weren't letting you in." 

"You didn't," Gaige sniffles miserably. "I…I like Angel. She was really, really nice to me and everything we saw her do, she wasn't…she didn't…Jack, Jack likes to try and, and rile us up, right? He, he, he's threatened to tell us things about each other cause, cause he can. But Angel didn't do anything like that, she just followed orders. I…I want that to mean that she's, that she's not doing this because she wants to. That she's really sorry." 

Maya sits down on the edge of the truck bed, near Gaige. "Then let's make a compromise, okay?" 

"What do you have in mind?" Zer0 signs. 

"Trust but verify," Maya declares. "Gaige, you're a tech expert to rival Angel, right?" 

Gaige glows a little at the praise, even though she's still teary-eyed. "You think so?" 

"I know so. If Angel tells us we need anything, you give us a second opinion about what that means. You said when you were in school you studied the Hyperion occupation of Pandora, right?" 

Gaige nods, sniffling a bit from leftover tears. "I wrote a paper. It was a group project, but I did all the work. I read everything about Hyperion on Pandora- the, the station, the armies…" 

"Then you're gonna be our fact checker. Trust," Maya looks up at Axton, Salvador, and Zer0, "But Verify. Right guys?" 

Zer0 flashes a thumbs-up on their display screen, showing agreement with the plan. Axton nods slowly. 

"Maya's right. We have to get back to Sanctuary. We've already crossed the Rubicon, and there's no going back now. We're Crimson Raiders, and we have to go home to our commander." 

Salvador nods quietly. "We don't have much of a choice but to listen to her. But kid, if you hear anything hinky, you let us know no matter how much you like that AI chick."

They glance over at Krieg, who looks up as if surprised, but seems to smile (weirdly), pointing at a drawing on the ground of him riding a giant skag into battle against some badly drawn Hyperion soldiers. It's a surprising moment of levity for the situation. Salvador glances back at Gaige, prompting an answer to his request.

Gaige nods, still shaking. "Okay. I will. I promise." 

* * *

Gaige doesn't breathe a word about Angel's requests until they make it back to home sweet home- the hallowed ground of floating Sanctuary. They tumble out of the fast travel station one by one, and Gaige practically kisses the walls of Pierce Station. Eyes bright (with joy or tears?) she looks at the others. 

"I'm gonna- I'm gonna go trade with Crazy Earl and get dinner from Miss Moxxi. Can you guys tell Roland and Lilith we're home and we need a rest?" 

They don't question her by now. Salvador ruffles her hair and tells her good job against those bots in Overlook, Maya asks for pineapple and ham, and Zer0 signs positivity. 

Axton is already headed towards their places at Crimson Raiders HQ before Gaige even asks, and she's allowed to wander off alone to the edge of town. The edge is now really an edge, a jagged chunk of concrete with rebar sticking out. She doesn't step too close to the edge, but she does use it for a bit of privacy. 

"Angel?" 

It's a call out into the ECHOnet void, a hopeless reach for something that may not actually be there. Gaige shrinks in on herself, finishing the sentence lingering in the gaps between her words. 

"Angel, I…I have to ask you something real important. And I want you to say it through your actions, not your words. I need you to tell me how much of what we were doing before you took down the old shields- how much of that was real, Angel? And if it was any bit of it, then speak to me right now but if it wasn't once real to you then just…don't speak to me again less it's for business." 

Gaige pauses, waiting, and the air around the flying city does not carry on it Angel's voice. Gaige, heartbroken, resolves herself to get pizza from Moxxi and eat herself into a food coma, but something stops her short. 

"Gaige, wait." 

"Angel." 

"I…" Angel pauses, unsure of what to say. "It was real, I promise. It was all real, Gaige. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry." 

"Why?" Gaige asks, almost in tears once again. "Why?" 

"I have to," Angel says, and in it Gaige hears the desperation of a chained animal. "I have to, or he-" 

"Don't tell me," Gaige says, in desperation. "I thought- is it fucked up to say that I hoped, Ange? Fucked up to tell you that I hoped it would be that and not something crueler?" 

"That's okay," Angel replies, voice hollow. "That's okay, Gaige. I understand." 

"Ange," Gaige says, reaching out to touch the nonexistent vision of Angel that comes from her ECHO call. Her hand phases through it, of course, but she tries anyway. "Angel. I promise you one thing. I won't let you stay there with him." 

Angel sounds almost sad when she replies, but Gaige isn't sure why. "I know. You won't." 

* * *

Three things have to be done before Gaige can have Angel. 

One: Get through an impassable force field.   
Two: Enter an impenetrable bunker.   
And three: Open a door that only opens to Jack's body and voice. 

Gaige feels like she could do all three of them at once if she had any choice in the matter, but she doesn't, not really. She has to take it one step at a time. And she has to keep up with her friends first. 

She goes through things with the sole idea of getting to Angel. And yes, it does affect her, all of it, but she feels it behind a veneer of Find Angel, Save Angel. 

She does mourn, with Mordecai, when Bloodwing dies. She finds him half conscious from Rakk ale on the steps of Moxxi's while she's trying to get dinner, sits him up, and sits with him for a while. He talks about Bloodwing, not expecting her to answer, but to get it instead. And she supposes she does. 

"It's not the same," she says once Moxxi brings her out her pepperoni pizza, "But I understand, really." 

She would, after all, be lost without Deathtrap. But Deathtrap is a robot- she can save his personality and memories from one piece of his main processor, and make him a new body. Bloodwing is not. Bloodwing is gone. 

"I'm sorry," Gaige says, and she really does mean it. Mordecai doesn't say anything, until he asks her to go beg Moxxi for another growler of Rakk ale even though she already cut him off. 

Gaige thinks it's out of pity that Moxxi agrees- especially since Moxxi knows Gaige doesn't drink. 

She doesn't leave after that, just sits there for the rest of the night. She tinkers with Deathtrap once Mordecai passes out, there on the sidewalk, awake until the sky over Pandora pinkens and she quietly asks Deathtrap to help her take them home. 

Next is a happier occasion. Gaige meets Brick, who is apparently married (to Mordecai, Lilith, and Roland, and isn't that a surprise) and Brick seems to like her. She's tiny next to him, but it's on more than one occasion while helping him prepare for the assault that he claims she's his favorite slab, and that makes her grin. 

(It annoys Salvador, who thinks he's more suitable to the idea of a slab as compared to Gaige who is fifteen, scrawny, and a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet.) 

Third, Angel has something for them in Jack's city- in Opportunity. Gaige loads a corrosive assault rifle and travels out with Zer0 and Axton. Maya and Krieg are "busy." Salvador stays behind to do chores around Sanctuary. 

She hopes this isn't a trap. She hopes that the faith she has grown in Angel won't be betrayed. 

It isn't. They get the pocketwatch, and Angel tells them that they're ready. 

Axton comments as they're walking back to the fast travel station. 

"We should wait a few days before we go to Thousand Cuts." 

Gaige wants to protest, but she knows what he means. So she bites her tongue. Zer0, sniper rifle slung over their back, signs in reply. 

"To get guns? Ammunition? Be perfectly ready?" 

Axton nods. "Exactly." 

Neither of them comment on Gaige's biting silence, where the youngest vault hunter would normally fill the air with excitement to fight the man. 

She has waited these long weeks to be ready to save Angel, but she will wait three days more so that it will work. 

It has to. 

* * *

Gaige holds the pocketwatch in her hand as she stands on the sensor for Angel's control core. She's bone-tired, and it took them forever to shoot BNK-3R out of the sky, but she's finally there. The others are waiting behind her with bated breath. She looks back at them over her shoulder as the scanner does its work. 

"-confirmed. Hello, sexy. State password." 

Angel appears in front of Gaige, looking mournful yet full of hope. 

"Gaige…the password is…I love you."

"I love you," Gaige says. It's a double meaning, and both she and Angel know it. 

The door opens. Gaige holds it for the others, feeling some sort of horrible twist in her gut, like there was something she didn't know coming here that she's going to regret not figuring out sooner. 

"Angel!" she calls, as the siren- no older than her- is jerked into the other room. A force field separates them from each other. And Gaige, god help her, ignores the Hyperion robots spawning in the room and races to Angel's side. 

"Destroy the eridium injectors," Angel instructs the others, and they pause, looking at Gaige and Angel. 

"You'll die," Gaige says, voice cracking. 

"It will end a lifetime of servitude. Gaige, please. I wouldn't ask it of you if it wasn't important. As long as I stay alive, as long as Jack has me, I will be a danger to Pandora." 

"Then let me take you," Gaige says, voice desperate. "Let me take you, come on, we can go-" 

"Without the eridium?" 

"I'll take you to the sea," Gaige continues, denial evident in her tone. Angel looks over her head. 

"Go." 

Angel presses her hands up against the force separating them. 

"I could take you to my home, Angel…" 

"Please, Gaige." 

"Then let me hold you," Gaige says, voice cracking. "While you…while you die." 

Angel looks surprised by that, and nods. 

Gaige takes out the pocketwatch and crushes it on the floor with her work hammer. "Angel-" 

"Gaige?" 

"I love you." 

It seems like the limited minutes Angel has left are far too short. Gaige thanks her for everything, and tells her that she won't die in vain, as long as Gaige lives, she'll protect Pandora for both of them. And when Zer0 destroys the last injector on Angel's orders, Angel keeps her promise and collapses into Gaige's arms. 

"It's okay," Angel says quietly to her. Gaige's entire body wracks with a sob. Angel raises her voice. "Dad? I have something to tell you. You're an asshole." 

"Angel? No, ANGEL!" 

Gaige drops her head, curling her arms around Angel. It's weird to feel like she shares an emotion with Handsome Jack, of all people, but for one strange second they are perverse echoes of each other- one with a broken, fucked-up definition of love, and one with something true cut short. 

* * *

Gaige doesn't remember the trek back to Sanctuary, especially after Jack shoots Roland and takes Lilith. She thinks that Axton and Zer0 help her carry her things. She lets them hose blood and machine oil off of her to make it fast, and she changes into an old shirt that someone offers her, and she doesn't sleep. She hears Zer0 settle down for the night, stealth suit quietly whirring. She hears Salvador snore, and she doesn't know how they can sleep. 

Her skin starts to prickle uncomfortably along her living arm, and she pulls a pillow over her head and tries to sleep. 

She tries not to think about it as they press forward towards Lilith and Jack. It's taken priority, over all of the errands they could run for others and all the things they could try and fix on Pandora, because Lilith is their new leader, and no one wants to see her reach the point Angel did. Angel. 

Gaige keeps quiet through most of the missions, not even snarking at Jack's snipes at all of them- but especially at her. He can call her a failure, a terrible engineer, a mad scientist, all he fucking wants, but she's going to be the one to take him down. 

"Something's wrong with my arm," she gripes, annoyed, as they walk into the Hyperion Info Stockade. 

"Twist it or something?" Salvador asks. Gaige shakes her head. 

"No, it just feels weird! Like it's hot and cold at the same time and something's gonna happen but not right now!" 

Maya looks intrigued by that, but she doesn't elaborate, so Gaige never actually asks. 

Jack's ECHO calls echo in Gaige's head. She presses on.

"She told me about you! The murderer from Eden-5! The teenage mad scientist! How does it feel to be a Pandoran burnout, huh? How did it feel to kill my daughter?" 

Gaige grits her teeth, rubs her arm, and keeps walking. Axton glances back over his shoulder at her. 

"You okay?" 

She looks up at him and nods. "Yeah, I'm fine." She flashes him a wide grin, faking it. He looks concerned for a second, but drops it. 

Gaige jogs after him, catching up. She's still holding her bum arm. Maybe she's been firing a gun too much. 

"Did one of the loaders get you?" Maya asks. "Your arm looks…bruised." 

Gaige frowns, prosthetic hand still on her arm. "I don't think so. But it's probably something like that. Right?" 

Maya looks concerned, and Gaige wonders why. 

"Gaige, if those don't get better in a few days or something, you should come talk to me." 

"What, not Doc Zed?" 

"No, come see me first, okay?" 

"What do you mean, Maya?" Axton asks. 

Maya waves her hand. "It's…probably nothing. Better safe than sorry." 

"Safe?" 

"I said it's nothing, Ax." 

Axton puts his hands up in defeat. "Okay, okay, just being careful. Kid's fifteen-" 

"And a half!" 

"-and a half, fifteen and a half, this might be Pandora but I don't want anyone to get hurt." 

"I promise that I wouldn't hide it if I thought Gaige was going to get hurt," Maya says, flatly, and with finality. "Now let's go, I have to talk to Lilith about something when we get back. Siren stuff." 

Gaige has to run to keep up with the others all the way back to the fast travel station. 

Maya goes upstairs when they get home. Gaige sits on her bed and begins to work on Deathtrap. Something electric flows between her and the machine, electric, but not electricity. She keeps working. 

Gaige would never tell Axton and Maya this, but she records all the hate Jack spews right into her ears over the phone and listens to it at night when she can't sleep. Not because she believes some of it- she doesn't, not really, it's the words of an insane fascist trying desperately to cling to any sort of power over her. It's just that something about it makes her feel motivated. Like it's a list of reasons to keep going at all costs. She will keep going at all costs. He thinks it's going to break her down, but actually, it's making her stronger. 

Did he ever talk to Angel like this? She wonders that when she turns her ECHO off to sleep. 

Does that give her a better reason to pull the trigger? 

Gaige notices that Maya is making more of an effort to talk to her, and she's not sure why. Maya brings her pizza when she's working. Maya asks how her bum arm is doing. Maya asks if anything's going on she wants to talk about. 

"I'm fifteen," Gaige replies with a mouthful of pepperoni, "I'm already through puberty and stuff, yanno." 

"You're fifteen in a situation that's rough even on adults," Maya replies evenly. "We worry about you. You've been withdrawn since Angel-" 

"I don't wanna talk about Angel," Gaige says, swallowing her food. She cautiously strikes two of Deathtrap's wires together. The bot's system analysis returns a result for her to look at. "I just wanna work on Deathtrap and talk to my friend. Is that okay?" 

"Okay." 

Gaige wraps one fist around the wire she was holding. "I can hear you guys worrying about me, and it's annoying. Seriously, I know I'm fifteen and I know how I acted about things but I-" 

She breaks off, feeling something change. Deathtrap's display turns white and staticky, and Gaige stiffens. She doesn't see the error, simply feeling the flow between her and her robot. 

"-aige? Gaige?" 

"-sorry. I think I zapped myself." Gaige shakes it off, even though it never felt like that when she shocked herself on accident before. 

"Your eyes," Maya says, intrigued. "I- I've never seen anything like that except-" 

"What about 'em?" 

Maya glances at the display, now returned to normal. "Nothing." 

* * *

Gaige's arm bruises just grow deeper and more distinct by the time they reach the Hero's Pass. Maya takes her aside at the entrance to the vault. 

"Gaige." 

"Come on, we have to-" 

"Gaige, this is important." 

"What?" 

"Look at your arm, Gaige." 

Gaige petulantly glances down, but she stops short when she sees what Maya is pointing out because of their arms next to each other. 

"Oh…" 

"I had my suspicions," Maya admits, "But by now I'm pretty damn sure. Gaige, you're not just human anymore. You're a siren." 

For the first time, a spark of childlike glee returns to Gaige's eyes. "I always wanted to be a siren! I mean, I figured it wasn't possible since I cut off my arm-" 

"You cut that off on purpose?" 

"-but I am! O-M-G, I'm a SIREN now. Do I stop going by mechromancer? Am I Gaige the Siren? Do I have powers? What do I do with them? Do I get to hang out with you and Lilith on your sirens only trips now?" 

"Slow down," Maya says, smiling to herself. "First of all, I need to warn you that you may experience something totally unusual in the vault. Sirens have paranormal experiences, especially on Pandora, and especially in vaults. Lilith warned me of that long ago when we were hunting for the Vault Key. I don't want you to run in there and have something happen. Whatever happens, remember that it's ultimately your power. I can help you, if you start to struggle. Just let me know and I'll have your back. It could get hairy- you already knew that, but even more now that you have new powers. You've felt them, haven't you?" 

Gaige nods. "When I was working with Deathtrap, before." 

"I could tell. You can peel back to Sanctuary with Brick and Mordecai if you don't feel-" 

"No," Gaige interrupts firmly. "No, Maya, I'm coming with you. I'm not going to hang back and wait for you to finish it. Please." 

"Okay," Maya says. "Then come with us to the end." 

* * *

Six on one, Jack still looks far too confident for his own good. Deathtrap hovers behind Gaige, and she grips the assault rifle from Roland's stash tightly in her hands. The team had agreed she should have it- to cheer her up after the events in the core. She clung to it in those past days like a lifeline, just to feel like she was carrying something to the end to represent the people they had lost. 

Now, she thinks, it will be the weapon to take Jack down. For Roland. For Angel. 

"-child murderers," Jack is growling. Before she can stop herself, Gaige takes a step forwards, holding Roland's gun tightly in her hands. One prosthetic. One arm of a Siren. 

She always kind of wondered what it felt like when Maya and Lilith manifested their wings. Siren wings look objectively dope, she always thought, and she had figured she was beyond having a pair. 

But she feels them now, in a comfortable and familiar prickle along her shoulder blades and spine. Light spills forward over her, and in the reflection of Jack's stunned expression she knows that they aren't just any wings, they are blindingly white and beautiful. And then, Gaige knows exactly where her siren powers came from- who they came from. Part of her already knew. She feels the thread that ties her to Deathtrap, that runs from her prosthetic to her robot, and she grabs that thread with her mind and pulls as hard as she can. 

When she connects with Deathtrap and their minds work as one, she already knows what she's going to say at the same time she opens up all the taps on Deathtrap to advance on Jack. 

"Executing phase shift." 

She doesn't even have time to linger in the feeling of knowing, for sure, where it comes from. Where this power comes from. Who gave her this gift. She knows, and she promises with all her heart: this is for you, Angel. This is for Roland, who died for you and for us. This is for everyone. 

"Go!" Maya yells, and her friends spring into battle behind her. 

Gaige has never moved with the precision having a connection with Deathtrap allows. Normally, Deathtrap can't vocalize, but now she can feel the impacts of the AI she put into him and feel like they're two sides of the same coin. If this is the result of Angel's siren power, Gaige wonders what it felt like to use it for something day-to-day, to slog through Jack's horrible plans and manage the Hyperion ECHOnet. 

"You're gonna die in pain once this thing is online." 

"That's my line," the being that is both Gaige the siren and her trusty robot answers. She assaults again, and again, and again- up against Jack, the Warrior, both, fueled by grief and rage.

Gaige is exhausted when she disconnects from Deathtrap to see a pitiful husk of a dictator in front of her. 

Maya is at her side, ready to support her. She stumbles, but doesn't fall. 

"That's crazy," Gaige says, running out of breath. Lilith smiles tiredly at her. 

"I can't say I expected you to be one of us." 

Gaige shrugs, grinning. "I'm full of surprises." 

"Does the universe's newest siren wanna do the honors?" Maya asks, gesturing to Jack. Gaige pauses, and then nods. 

"I don't think I'm gonna do it the siren way," she admits. "I'm gonna do this the me way." 

Gaige raises Roland's gun. 

"She chose you," Jack spits. "A siren can choose any heir, and she chose you, a filthy runaway bandit with no future, no morals, no- Angel deserved better than to die in your arms, and she was a fool to make you her heir." 

Gaige, for the first time, shows Jack just how little his opinions affect her. "Angel deserved better? Yeah, she sure did. Better than you." 

She brings Roland's gun down on Jack, hard, cracking his skull, and once again for good measure. She has to lean on it when she's done, but it's worth it. It's all worth it. 

She perks up, though, at the approach of others. 

"Mordecai! Brick!" 

Lilith turns around. "You're late." 

"Seems like you handled it well enough." 

"Meet Pandora's newest siren," Lilith says cheerfully, gesturing to an exhausted Gaige. "Gaige." 

Gaige waves tiredly. "I need to sleep for a week." 

Maya pats her on the back. "You did good for your first time using powers. The first time I did anything I was tired for a week, and I didn't kill an eridian monstrosity and a fascist." 

"I need to sleep for a month, then."

Axton ruffles her hair from behind. 

"Careful next time you do that, Ax!" Gaige exclaims. "I might freak out and zap you or something!" 

Gaige remembers reading somewhere that revenge isn't a fulfilling thing, that it'll only bring you to your own ruin, and all that. When you set out on a journey for revenge, dig two graves. One for him, one for you. But right now, on Pandora, with her friends- no, her new Pandoran family- and a permanent reminder of Angel always with her- she finally feels at peace. 

"Drinks are on me!" she yells. Mordecai whoops. Maya rolls her eyes. Salvador reminds her that she doesn't even drink. Axton tries to carry her so she doesn't have to walk the rest of the way while Lilith examines the vault key. 

And the grief is over, and Gaige the mechromancer- no, Gaige the siren- is finally complete. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have some potential other shorties in this verse. If you're interested leave a comment or check out my [tumblr!](http://maggie-wittington.tumblr.com)


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